


Building Vocabulary

by Cherry_Red_Ink



Series: Darts and Blasters and Flamethrowers, oh my! [7]
Category: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Genre: Foreign languages are evil, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 15:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2393894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherry_Red_Ink/pseuds/Cherry_Red_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Torian has offered to teach the F!Bounty Hunter the beautiful language of Mando'a and for a people of warriors and mercenarys, the Mandalorians sure have a complicated language.</p>
<p>No Spoilers, just a scene taken out of context inspired by my own struggles to understand the grammar of this language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Building Vocabulary

Learning Mando’a is more difficult than she had expected, although the pronunciation is quite similar to Basic. Still: trying to write the language down is way more difficult because Torian insists on teaching her ‘proper’ Mando’a, first, which means she has to adapt to a 23-letter alphabet and learn to make do without the letters F, X or Z – none of which have a place in spoken Mando’a despite the puzzling existence of clan names like ‘Fett’ and ‘Viszla’. And only once Torian is convinced that she has understood and memorized this does he deign to teach her the characters that represent the missing three letters in the written language (and the written language only, as he never tires of reminding her).

Counting in Mando’a puts a new hate for numbers into her, too. It is easy to memorize that ‘solus’ means one because it’s similar to ‘sole’, and ‘t’ad’ means two and consists of two syllables, which is enough of a mnemonic at this point. ‘Ehn’ means three and she reminds herself that it sounds similar to (basically) Basic ‘enth’, just without the th-sound and a longer e in front and looks similar to the figure ‘3’, curves included. It would be even better as a memory hook if it worked with Mando’a, too, but unfortunately its characters for the letter Enth and the figure 3 are very different from each other. ‘Cuir’ means four and she memorizes it as being an upside-down 2 in Mando’a the same way ‘ehn’ is an upside-down ‘solus’. And that’s as far as she can get before things get complicated.

Rayshe’a, resol, e’tad, sh’ehn and she’cu are impossible to learn and much to the hunter’s annoyance, she can’t form any sensible memory hooks for them, either. E’tad could be easy to memorize if it were a mix of ‘ehn’ and ‘t’ad’, i.e. three times two but unfortunately e’tad is seven, not six. Similarly sh’ehn is eight and she’cu is nine, but it would be easier to learn if it were the other way around. She’s never going to get the hang of the tens and hundreds, either.

But she makes an effort and it’s worth it when she utters a clumsy “Cuir verde staab’eso” ( _Four soldiers on the right side_ ) into their shared comlink and Torian acknowledges her with a quiet “Jate” ( _Good_ ). It’s even better when there really _are_ four soldiers on their right side and she hasn’t confused ‘staabi’ and ‘payt’ again but in her defense, she has never needed the excuse of an additional language to mix up ‘right’ and ‘left’ and it’s become a bit of a running joke with them.

The grammar is only marginally more user-friendly. Marginally, because there are no cases and tenses are indicated by a prefix added to the verb. Unfortunately, questions and commands are also indicated by prefixes, as seems to be everything else, and a negation is expressed by adding n’, nu, nu’ or ne before a sentence but with the personal pronoun being ‘ni’ that’s an accident waiting to happen. And it happens; quite often even and she knows she’s messed up again when Torian shoots her that charming, slightly lopsided grin of his and shakes his head. It is a cute grin and seeing it regularly somewhat mollifies her, but it doesn’t make learning her adoptive people’s language any less frustrating. 

Nor does it motivate her into making much of an effort because she actually likes that grin. A lot.

“Tug’yc,” Torian quietly demands ( _Again_ ) and with a groan, she follows his command.

“Gaht,” she begins tentatively, pointing at the map’s northern part and then immediately indicates the opposite site and declares it to be “Ku’gaht”. 

“South?” Torian asks and she nods. His grin turns lopsided and the hunter curses softly under her breath.

“Gaht, abesh, ka’gaht, wasuur. North, east, south, west. To the north,” the Mandalorian prompts.

“At gaht,” Shai’yera answers at length, careful to pronounce it ‘aht’, with a long a, instead of the basic ‘at’ and shooting her teacher a skeptical look. There’s a traiterous tell-tale twitch of his lips and the woman throws up her hands in frustration. 

“Tch. Rangir!” ( _To hell with it!_ ) she exclaims, huffily crossing her arms in front of her chest. Torian’s smile widens.

“At least you know how to curse and insult. That may come in handy.”

“Ne’johaa, Cadera.” ( _Shut up, Cadera._ )

“Ori’jate. Excellent.”

She really likes that lopsided grin of his, but the way his face lights up when she has correctly used a vocabulary or used the correct pronounciation… yeah, there’s something about that, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own any of the characters displayed in this piece of fiction. I am merely bowering them for the entertainment of my readers and myself with no profit other than (hopefully) personal pleasure in reading and writing being gained by all parties involved. If this piece of fiction is deemed offensive by the legal owners of Star Wars: The Old Republic, their legal representatives or the website administration it shall of course be removed with full apologies extended. 
> 
> The fictional language of Mando'a/Mandalorian belongs to LucasArts and its associates. The dictionary and grammar guide provided by Karen Traviss, who originally developed the language for the Star Wars franchise, have been used for this piece in order to understand the things I don't understand.


End file.
